


Never Quite Forgotten

by Picnium



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, M/M, Multi, Puberty, Self-Loathing, Slice of Life, Underage Drinking, Underage Sex, boys growing up, every character besides dirk and jake are either just mentioned or make brief appearances, experimental crossdressing, ooc in certain areas gomen, school au really, wet dreams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-16
Updated: 2013-06-16
Packaged: 2017-12-15 03:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/844890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Picnium/pseuds/Picnium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Jake English.</p><p>You do not like yourself.</p><p>You do not like growing up.</p><p>But most of all, you do not like Dirk Strider.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Quite Forgotten

**Author's Note:**

> hello I don't know how to work this I've had this account for a year and just logged in today haHA ok wow  
> also I'm a hick I apologize for skewed grammar occasionally  
> pls enjoy

You're 6, it's your first day of first grade, and he brings a knife to school. A big, long knife with a sleek, black handle. His name is etched into the blade near the handle in tiny, tiny letters. Everyone stares, everyone screams, and the boy's poor, pale face turns redder than a french balloon. It was only one day, but you've never forgotten.

He doesn't come back for an entire year, not until after you've mastered the alphabet and the formation of letters on a piece of lined and dotted paper. Not until you've learned the colors of the rainbow and the names of the animals in the zoo. You're 7, and he doesn't bring a knife this time. He's quiet. He sits at the back of the room, and he always has his hands folded in his lap. He brings a scary puppet for show and tell, and he snuggles with it during nap time. His name is Dirk, you learn, and you don't think you like that name.

Recess is your favorite class, probably. You know it doesn't count as a class, because you don't even learn anything, but you aren't sure what else to classify it as. On nice, warm, sunny days, your class is taken outside after your bellies are filled with lukewarm food and cold milk. There are wood chips serving as a cushion for the playground, but it doesn't help the splinters that wedge themselves into your skin when you fall off the monkey bars. Dirk is there with his stupid creepy puppet, and he holds a hand out to help you up. You bat his hand away, frowning, and you watch his normally blank face stutter for a second. You lick your dry lips and pick at the back of your thighs, pulling at the shards of wood. "I like your shorts," he says suddenly, like a half-assed attempt at trying to start a conversation. He licks his lips too. It makes you angry. "Shut up," you bite, and you leave him standing alone by the monkey bars as your class is called in to the building.

You're 10, for a moment, and you're sitting in your driveway. Your new driveway, right next to Dirk Strider's driveway. The one with chalk all over it, traced bodies made to look like a faux crime scene. You think you want to run away. You don't want to live next to him. He's weird and creepy, and you heard his brother hits him. That's why he's got bruises. You've seen his brother though; whenever Dirk leaves to get on the bus, his brother's there. His brother kisses him on the cheek and pats him off, like a father. Like a father you don't have. You hate him.

You're 12, and you're in middle school. You're friends with a girl named Jane, and a girl named Roxy. You're also friends with a boy named Dirk, and you don't know how that happened. You still hate him. He never answers your messages. He's in your P.E. class, and he's really good at everything. He always smacks a home run and he's always the last one standing in dodgeball. What makes you more angry is that he doesn't even know what he's doing half the time. He doesn't know the rules of any game you play, yet he's MVP at everything. Sometimes you hope you get placed on a different team than him in flag football just so you can tackle him to the ground. But sometimes you feel... different, when it's just you and him, sitting in the driveway and watching the clouds. Sometimes he really smiles at you, and it scares you. It scares you more than his stupid, stupid puppet.

You're 13 when you start to feel weird sometimes. Your chest gets tight and something inside you feels kind of scary, and you don't remember the last time you took a good look at yourself in the mirror but you don't remember ever being that big down there. There's hair starting to sprout places where you don't think hair should be, and that scares you. There's no one you can ask; you live with your older cousin, Jade, who is, in fact, a woman. Well... maybe you lied. There's one person you can ask. You talk to Dirk Strider about your penis. He knows everything about this kind of stuff, and you're glad. He explains to you that it's all normal and a part of being a boy and you sort of want to ask him if he's getting the same kind of feelings you do. You don't ask.

You're 14, and you have a dream that doesn't fade away for weeks. It's the same dream, over and over. You're at school, at your locker. You're not wearing anything, and you're remarkably self-conscious. He walks up to you, eyes half-lidded and thick lips slightly parted. You feel heat all around yourself, wet against your mouth. You feel his tongue, licking, tasting, all down your chest. In the middle of the hallway, where everyone can see, where everyone is staring and screaming just like the day he brought the knife. He kneels, and you feel soft hair between your fingers and a tight heat rubbing all around you. You wake up cold and wet and sweating. You can't look him in the eye at school. Your skin burns where he gently touches your arm, and your head aches when he tries to ask you what's wrong. You dismiss him coldly.

You learn through truth or dare at a dumb sleepover that Dirk's brother doesn't beat him in the traditional sense. You learn that they sword fight for fun, and you think that's pretty cool. You ask him if you could watch them practice sometime, and he gives you a look like you'd just asked him to cut off his own arm. It stings, and you bite your tongue. He doesn't talk to you for a while, and you think you must have really screwed up.

You're 15, and you lose your virginity to a pretty brunette with cat eye glasses. She was an exchange student from some country you'd never heard of, but you liked her accent and her blue-colored lipstick. She left hickeys on your neck in the plainest of places, laced with blue stains in the shape of plump lips. You remember how it felt, physically, but you can't recall the same kind of feeling in your chest as when you were younger and you wrapped a hand around yourself. You remember panicking when you forgot to pull out, but you remember her hands on your cheeks (soothing, like a mother,) and her soft, whispered voice. You remember forgetting.

You remember trying to forget the look on Dirk's face. You couldn't put that many band-aids on your neck, and your cousin didn't own any concealer that would look natural with your tanner skin tone. But you remember the tiny frown on his face, delicate and hurt. You remember the guilt weighing down your heart. You remember promising him you would wait. Not for him, but for yourself. You remember the little shake of his head, and you remember trying to forget.

Dirk joins the wrestling team, and you, Jane, and Roxy all go to his first couple meets. You all cheer him on, excited and proud whenever his arm is lifted in victory of the match. You think his hair looks pretty funny when it's squashed by the stupid earmuffs he's wearing. Something looks off to you though, and you can't really place what it is. You stare intently at him, wishing your glasses had a zoom feature. Your cheeks flare when you realize he isn't wearing his usual ridiculous sunglasses. His eyes are a warm caramel color, almost an orange when the gym light hits him just right. Roxy leans over and asks if you're blushing because you can see Dirk's boner. You sputter and deny her accusation. Truthfully, you hadn't been looking until she mentioned.

You stop going to his practices and matches after that. You can tell he's upset by it, especially when he asks you to come and you make up some bullshit excuse to skip it. You hate yourself.

You're 16, and he tells you. You think it's weird and kind of gross. Really gross. He tells you he wishes he was a girl sometimes. That he stole one of Roxy's bras once and stuffs it sometimes. It weirds you out, and you tell him, and he laughs. He laughs like it was funny, but you can hear the hurt behind his cover. You wish you could stop hurting him.

Dirk quits the wrestling team towards the end of the year. You ask him why, and he tells you it's because it was interfering with his school work. You think that's a bunch of horseshit, but you nod and offer him a pained smile. You decide you are an idiot for not supporting your friend when he needed it.

You're 17, and Dirk's brother isn't home. It's almost graduation, so what the hell, you crack open a case of beer, you celebrate. It's good, clean fun. You watch the damn near weekly Star Wars marathon on Spike, you give commentary between dry parts to keep him entertained.

You learn soon that Dirk can't hold his liquor. His eyes get glassy and his sunglasses are perched on his head, pinning his bangs back. His cheeks are splotched red like he's ill, and before you know, it he's flitting between sobbing on the floor, laughing graciously, kicking at the furniture and cursing.

He tells you he's sorry, that he never meant anything he's ever said. He says he's sorry he broke his promise too, that he fucked Roxy once after homecoming last year behind the Taco Bell (which is how he stole her bra) and that he once gave Caliborn, the kid from Ireland, a blowjob before wrestling practice. He says he's gay, completely gay, because he doesn't like Roxy, he didn't like how she felt, he didn't like how she looked and he wanted something else.

He says he wants you. He says he's always loved you, ever since first grade. He says he's always wanted to be a girl because you liked girls and he wanted you to like him. He says he's sorry through choked whines, and he clawed at the arm of the couch you were sitting on.

You didn't know what to call the feeling that was bubbling below your skin. You thought it was anger.

But you were scared.

You're 18 and you haven't talked to him since. You graduate.

You're 19 and you're in college. You're going to be an archeologist some day. You've always liked skulls, people tell you.

You're 23 and you've nearly forgotten about Dirk Strider.

You're 24 and you get married to a girl named Aranea, the same one who took your virginity all those years ago. She is a sweet girl. Her touch reminds you of something you had before, but not entirely the same. Less like a memory and more like a reminder.

You're 25 and you graduate from college.

You're 26 and you get divorced. Your wife was cheating on you with another woman; some punk from Britain whose name you didn't care to learn. You wish them the best of luck, though you spat it at them like a bitter old man. You spend your days sifting through the newspaper for jobs, reading about the weather on the internet, and counting pocket change to pay for TV dinners.

You're 27 and you're alone. You have never felt such a burning hatred for yourself. You wonder how much a bottle of sleeping pills costs.

You're 30 and you get a call from a number you don't recognize. You answer.

You hear a voice you almost don't recognize. It's gruff, tougher than before, but still laced with a certain sort of playfulness that you know anywhere.

You wonder where along the way that you deleted his number.

You meet him at a coffee shop. He's more muscular than you remember, but, then again, so are you. He looks like he's never left his house, ever, and his childish freckles have all either faded or vanished. You can see bags under the bottom angle of his shades. He says hello, and you say you're sorry.

Your name is Jake English, and you don't know if you're capable of really loving someone, but you think that if your heart beats this fast, your palms sweat this much, and you feel this sick, that maybe this is close enough.

Your name is Jake English, and you're glad you never really forgot.

**Author's Note:**

> YES okay uh I'm not rly looking for constructive criticism or anything but if something is like majorly wrong with this pls let me know so I can change it thank you
> 
> ALSO should I bump up the rating?? I'm not sure I mean it's not detailed at all rly I'm just not sure what the standards are here I'm,,


End file.
